


She sees more than she is telling.

by alchemist17



Series: but Father, I wouldn't be here without you [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/M, First Kiss, Parent-Child Relationship, Parent/Child Incest, Parenthood, Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 12:59:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12865014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemist17/pseuds/alchemist17
Summary: Corvo loves his daughter. Emily loves her father.See opening notes for additional warnings.





	She sees more than she is telling.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is completely consensual please don't come for my life. Please only come for my life for things I have done deliberately.  
> Emily gets tipsy when she is approximately 11/12. When she is 13 she starts her period, at 16 Corvo wakes to find her masturbating in the bed next to him. She first kisses Corvo shortly before the events of Dishonored 2 when she is 25.

“Corvo?”

He’s already in bed, shirtless and warm, snuggled beneath the sheets. He sits up, blinks his Dark Vision active. It’s strange to be in his own bed. He’d grown used to sharing with Jessamine, and then the narrow bunk on the boat.

“What’s wrong?”

Emily steps inside, closes the door. He can still see her, though, as well as the ripples of sound as she shuffles her feet.

“My room is too big.”

It’s a valid complaint. The Royal Bedroom is very large, and Emily has been kept in a succession of small rooms.

He nods.

“Corvo?”

“You can sleep here.”

She walks over, footsteps making orange ripples on the carpet. Corvo scoots further to one side of the bed, relaxes back into the pillow as she slips under the blankets.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” She puts her fingers to the curve of his cheekbone.

He blinks away the Dark Vision. “It’s nothing.”

Emily knows it isn’t. But she tucks herself into his side, pulls at his arm until he rests it over her. He tries not to rest the weight of his arm on her but once he falls asleep he relaxes. 

When he wakes in the night, Emily is still pinned beneath his arm. She's clutching it with her small hands. He doesn't move.

 

“It's too bright.”

Corvo hangs thicker curtains in her room and-

“It's too dark.”

He takes them down again. 

“It's too cold.”

He gets the winter blankets from their cupboard and-

“It's too warm.”

He puts them away, dozes in a chair so she can have the windows open. 

And then she tries the first excuse again-

“My room is too big.” Emily says when he tries to tuck her in. “Maybe you could stay here?”

It's the same thing Jessamine said to him, around twenty years ago. He shakes his head, settles in the chair by the window. Corvo can't bear to leave, not now she's asked him to stay.

 

She doesn't ask him to stay in her room again. Emily always comes to his room, cycles through her excuses, shakes her head when he suggests the same things he's tried before. A year passes with her sleeping tucked under his arm.

 

It's her birthday, and when Corvo wakes in the night she isn't there. His Dark Vision finds her through the walls, and he doesn't need the enhanced hearing it gives to hear her vomit. Corvo goes to her, holds back her hair, wipes her face when she's finished. He used to do this for Jessamine too. 

“Maybe I won't have so much chocolate cake next year.” Emily says. She presses her face into his chest, eyelashes catching on the hair there.

She did eat too much cake, but that wasn't the problem. There was gin in the punch, despite his insistence, and she must have drank more than he saw.

He'll fire whoever prepared the drink, and next year he'll watch her better. But for now he combs his fingers through her hair, makes her brush her teeth before he carries her back to bed.

 

Emily doesn't use an excuse next time she comes to bed. She simply slips into his room, slides beneath the covers. She's trying not to wake him but he does anyway, listening to her shuffling about beside him. She lays as close as she dares, and once she falls asleep Corvo pulls her closer. 

 

It's years before she uses an excuse again.

 

When Emily is thirteen she wakes him in the night. He smells blood. Corvo pulls her body under his, pressing close to keep her covered while he scans the room.

“Corvo…”

He sees the guards in the hall, the guards downstairs. There's nothing but the ripple of Emily's voice.

“There's no danger, I've just started bleeding.”

He sits up, looks down at her. There's blood on the front of her nightgown, on the bed where she'd lain. 

“I'll go and get the stuff. I don't keep anything in here.”

The guards look at him as he jogs through the corridor, and they're still looking when he comes back clutching spare clothes. He stands outside the bathroom, the door ajar as he talks her through the supplies. Emily's form glows orange, overlays on her hand when she hands him the dirty nightgown. She steps out, adjusts herself.

“I bet I'm not supposed to do that in public.” Her tone isn't quite jovial enough, the panic lingering still. “Oh no, I got you dirty too.” Emily plucks at the fabric of his trousers. There's a patch of red on his crotch. He looks down at it, thinks of the guards seeing him with blood on his crotch at midnight, with clean underwear for his daughter. Corvo pats her hand away.

“I'll handle it. Go back to sleep.” He puts the stained sheet, their dirty clothes into the laundry, and hopes nobody notices.

 

People notice. Corvo hears the whispers, sat as a rat in the vents.

Some of them think he hurt her.

They accuse him quietly, never directly saying it. The other staff snort and shake their heads but the thought lingers and all of them, in their beds that night, think of it.

He knows the rumors make their way to Emily, through concerned maids. She doesn’t mention them to him.

 

When Emily is sixteen she wakes him in the night.

She’s looking away when he opens his eyes and her hand is-

He closes his eyes, processes the image. She’s got her nightgown pulled up to her hips, a hand between her legs. One leg is bent at the knee. Corvo lets Dark Vision flood in, reveals her form. Emily is looking at him now, eyes wide and dark, shining. He wonders, briefly, if this is some dream from the Void, if the Outsider is bored and taunting him. But she tilts her head up, and the whites of her eyes catch in the light. The Vision fades, but he doesn’t sleep.

 

Emily starts to wear gowns from Jessamine’s closet, thinner, silkier, than her cotton ones. They slide against the sheets and they ride up. Some night he feels her skin against his. Corvo starts to wear a shirt to bed. The fabric of the gowns is such that in the right light, at the right angle, he can see the hair between her legs. She's hairy, like him. 

Emily removes the hair once. It itches, and she fidgets enough as she tries to sleep that she keeps them both awake.

He can also see the red of her period underwear. Emily wakes in the night to take pain relief, curls around carefully wrapped stones from the base of the fire. For Jessamine he'd ease her pain with his fingers, his mouth. But he can't help Emily, and watches her squirm.

 

She turns eighteen, and they throw a party. There no alcohol in the punch, but Emily's found some. Most would think the blush on her cheeks is artificial but he knows it isn't, having watched her get ready. Emily dances with the noble girls, the more slender boys. She asks Corvo to dance, and he smiles, shakes his head. She hasn't asked since she was young, and she'd stood on his feet. He'd danced with Jessamine at her parties once, until the rumors started, and the Emperor told them no more.

Emily asks again later, in his room, and he can't say no again. She stands on his feet, barefoot on his formal boots. The juxtaposition of her little feet on his, her warm body against his, is cruel. She kisses his cheek, again and again, inches closer to his mouth. He turns his head so she changes direction, kisses down to the unfastened collar of his jacket. Emily burps, and snuggles into his neck. She snuffles, begins to snore. 

Carefully, he walks her to bed, lays her down. She reaches for him and he guides her hands away. Corvo quietly undoes her belt, pulls her trousers down from her hips. She doesn't stir. He gets her a spare blanket from the cupboard, tucks her in a little tighter than usual.

Corvo takes their pet rat from it's cage. She looks at him, rubs her nose. He places her on the floor, and together they pass through the open air vent. The rat sits in the corner as he steps out into his own body. Corvo puts his hand to the whalebone, and his Mark glows as the Outsider tilts his chin up. 

He looks smug. Corvo considers running.

“Even without a coup, you remain interesting.”

Corvo closes his eyes. 

“She loves you. But you knew that, right? I can tell you something new.”

“Don't.”

“She thinks about you. When she touches herself.”

“Emily doesn't do-”

“She comes back to your room during the day, tells the tutor she needs a bathroom break.”

He shakes his head. There's a pricking in his nose. 

“I know you love her too. You're trying so hard to deny yourself. But you needn't. You should be happy. Both of you.”

Tears well in Corvo’s eyes. The Outsider touches them, rubs the wetness across his fingers curiously. 

“It'll hurt her, if you say no. But you've done this before. How long can you deny your Empress this time?”

Corvo sleeps in the chair that night.

 

He suggests she tries to sleep in the Royal Bedroom again. Emily agrees, but she doesn't look at him. She dozes in her lessons. Naps in the library now Corvo has locked his door.

Emily had asked why. She'd shifted on the spot, thighs pressed tightly together.

The papers on his desk were not as he'd left them, he says. She nods, and he fires a maid to cover himself. 

She falls asleep in court once. Corvo wakes her and she holds it together to dismiss the gathered nobles. They leave, and she waves Corvo close. 

“Are you ill?” He puts his hand to her forehead. 

“I'm not ill, Corvo. I just can't sleep.”

“Have you seen the physician?” He checks the back of her neck and she sighs, eyes closing.

“I can't sleep without you.”

“There's a tincture we could try.”

Emily kisses him. Time freezes, and Corvo scurries away. Time resumes with him on his knees in the hidden room, and Emily opens her eyes to find him gone. 

“You know I don't lie, dear Corvo. Not when the truth is just as good.”

She gets the tincture, and so does he.

 

A month later, Delilah steals his Mark and casts him into stone. 

 

The Outsider pulls him into the Void, lets him stretch his legs in spirit at least. It's not the same now, colder, without the Mark. Corvo’s hand is bare, the skin where the Mark was pale and dull. The Outsider takes his hand, but there's nothing to be done. His paler fingers brush over his hand.

“Thankfully, Emily is proving just as fascinating as you did, fighting to save the one she loves.”

“She’s-”

Corvo falls from the Void, and his words are lost to the stone. 

 

He wakes to Emily's touch. He's woken like this before, to see her hair loose and the soft light of the early morning behind her. Now the light is soft but her hair is tied back and her face covered. 

“You saved me.”

“Of course I did.” Her eyes soften, and when she speaks it sounds like a confession.  “I love you.”

Corvo sighs shakily. He swallows, wets his mouth.

“Corvo?” Emily winds her arms around his neck. 

He moves closer on instinct, takes her in his arms as he always has.

“I love you.”

This time, when she kisses him, he kisses back. 

**Author's Note:**

> stay tuned i'm gonna write a nsfw follow up i just felt funny about having that in the same fic where i'd written emily as a child see soon  
> favourites- corvo's pet rat  
> corvo's hairy af chest  
> daddy daughter foot dancing  
> corvo's secret shrine, accessible by rat
> 
> i posted this late last night I remembered extra stuff, such as  
> This is my fiftieth fic! I've marked this momentous occasion the way I started; writing soft incest while I build up the courage to write smut.  
> 


End file.
